Scanners

Scanners are displayed on the Settings page and displays the left navigation menu that includes links to settings specific to Scanners.

Based on product version, the Scanners page navigation includes Overview, Link (Nessus Professional only), Software Update, and in Nessus Manager, linked Remote and Agents scanners.

Scanners / Local / Overview

Purpose: The Scanners / Local / Overview page displays the Overview for your Local Nessus Scanner and its Nessus plugins, including the following information:

Your Nessus product name and version.

Your number of licensed hosts.

Your number of licensed Scanners.

Your number of licensed Agents (Nessus Manager and Tenable.io only).

Your plugin last update.

Your plugin expiration date.

The plugin set identifier.

Your Nessus Activation Code.

The button next to the Activation Code allows you to update your Activation Code as needed.

Setting

Description

Product Version(s)

User Type(s)

Local

Overview

The overview page gives detailed information about the product version and plugins.

Nessus Manager

Nessus Professional

All user account roles except Basic

Permissions

Users or groups are added to the permission page for the following permissions:

No Access: Any users or groups specified cannot view, use, or manage the scanners.

Can Use: Users or groups specified can view and use the scanner, but cannot make any changes.

Can Manage: Users or groups specified can make changes to the scanner's settings.

Nessus Manager

Nessus Professional

System Administrator

Link

Enabling this option allows this local scanner to be linked to Nessus Manager or to Tenable.io.

Tip: When linking to Tenable.io, use the following settings:

Manager Host: cloud.tenable.com

Manager Port: 443

Linking Key: Cloud Linking Key

In Tenable.io, the Linking Key is displayed on the Scanners > Linked Scanners page.

Note: Nessus Professional can be linked to another Nessus Manager or Tenable.io instance only once.

Nessus Professional

System Administrator

Software Update

Software updates can be configured for updating all Nessus components, Nessus plugins only, or disabled altogether.

Options include Update Frequency and you have the ability to configure a custom Plugin Feed host.

This page also allows you to perform a Manual Software Update using the downloaded, compressed TAR file obtained when you Manage Nessus Offline and Download and Copy Plugins.

Nessus Manager

Nessus Professional

System Administrator

Remote

Linked

Remote scanners can be linked to this manager through the provided key or valid account credentials. Once linked, they can be managed locally and selected when configuring scans.

Nessus Manager

System Administrator

Administrator

Agents

Linked

Agents can be linked to this manager using the provided key with the following setup instructions. Once linked, they must be added to a group for use when configuring scans. Also, linked agents will automatically download plugins from the manager upon connection.

Note: this process can take several minutes and is required before an agent will return scan results.

Nessus Manager

System Administrator

Groups

Agent groups are used to organize and manage the agents linked to your scanner. Each agent can be added to any number of groups and scans can be configured to use these groups as targets. From this view, you can manage your agent groups.